A little over two years ago, Naruto Uzumaki stumbled across a powerful artifact from a bygone age known as Hidden Hand. The kusarigama or Intelligent Device as it referred to itself as, possessed a number of powerful attributes and abilities that it conferred upon it's wielder.

But perhaps even more importantly to Naruto—Hidden Hand was a living repository of incredibly useful information. It was not an Archive or Repository-Class Device, that was not it's function after all. But it still contained a sizeable amount of knowledge that far outstripped any modern day library. Which was even more priceless to Naruto was that Hidden Hand could not only instruct Naruto, he could do it better than his instructors could—even if they were willing to do so. Even those areas which Hidden Hand was unfamiliar with or lacked knowledge of, it could readily acquire.

It was primarily a reconnaissance and spying tool after all. Plus, while a few ninjas had managed to redevelop crude telepathic abilities, Hidden Hand compared their rudimentary abilities to a child playing with a sledgehammer while it would be a virtuoso surgeon armed with a scalpel. Not to mention that their mental shields lagged considerably further behind.

Naruto could have easily have passed the second time around, but did not.

By that time, he was well aware of his status as a Jinchuuriki and that he was being deliberately sabotaged by the Academy. Instead, he simply continued his independent studying and training while the rest of the village thought of him as nothing more than a loud, annoying prankster and idiot.

He walked in the shadows of Konoha, unseen and unsuspected—becoming a living weapon, becoming a master of stealth … becoming the ultimate ninja.

Mischief Fragment - Hidden Hand

Chapter Two: Shadow War

[User Alert.]

Naruto Uzumaki cracked open an eye and yawned, cracking his jaw. He got up and stretched, joints popping. Through practice, he subvocalized: Morning Handy.

Through long experience, he sensed the slight hesitation of the Intelligent Device to once more priggishly proclaim not to refer to him as Handy. Standing up, Naruto Uzumaki was assaulted by the utter blackness of his surroundings. It wasn't simply a matter of lighting but the fact was that with the exception of his bed, clothes, and a few odds and ends here and there—the entire chamber; walls, floor, doors, and even the ceiling was pure shadow black. Even most of the furniture bore the same glossy dark hues.

This was his sanctuary and refuge. Shortly after finding Hidden Hand, the Intelligent Device had created this place with his help. A permanent sub-dimensional pocket holding space which he had taken to living and sleeping within as none could enter it without Hidden Hand—and even more importantly, without Naruto's permission. True, the place cried—well, actually screamed for a more lively color palette, say something in white, Naruto had simply adapted to the situation. More or less.

[It is now 0400.]

Naruto nodded and started limbering up and beginning his morning exercises. Two years and several months of hard work and proper diet had caused Naruto to shoot up like a weed with an impressive sculpted musculature. Finishing his exercises, he stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower area (also black) and sluiced his body clean. Dressed only in a pair of pants, he wandered into the (still black) dining area and pulled out several bottles of water and protein bars from the (even more black) cabinets.

Status Updates? Naruto asked mentally as he chugged down a bottle of water and then took a bite of his ration bar.

[Shadow Decoy Prime is fully charged. He is currently in your official residence and pretending to be asleep. The regular surveillance team was pulled from service approximately 36 hours ago, indicating that Konoha is attempting to shift around some of their assets to other roles. There is no surveillance on him or your residence at this present time. Shadow Decoy Prime is ready to execute his part of the operation and is tasked to keep a close eye on Target Beta in the Stadium. Should the Jinchuuriki begin combat offensive, Prime is ready to initiate countermeasures.]

[Target Alpha arrived yesterday evening at 1750 accompanied by a small retinue. He is currently in Konoha and masquerading as the Yondaime Kazekage.] Hidden Hand reported as a shadowy tear opened in midair, forming an ovoid that was slightly elongated at the ends that almost looked like the shape of an eye.

Within the eye-like opening, a robed and masked figure appeared. The image paused and the figure was bombarded by a complex series of electromagnetic radiations, stripping away his disguise and revealing a pale serpentine looking male.

Naruto frowned as he swallowed a mouthful of protein bar. What IS that? Some sort of Advanced Henge?

[Negative. Target Alpha appears to be wearing a complex combination of shaped epidermal cells with subcutaneous tissues overlaying his actual form.]

Naruto absorbed that for a long moment and then made a disgusted face. "Oh Kami! He peeled apart the Kazekage and is wearing his skin as a Kazekage Suit?!"

[Affirmative.]

Naruto made a few retching sounds. He had become intimately familiar with numerous ninja practices. Many of them were brutal and barbaric. But some things still managed to horrify him. "I lost my appetite," he muttered as the Shadow Eye closed, taking with it the Kazekage/Orochimaru.

[I must strongly recommend that you continue eating. Your carbohydrate and caloric intake must be at optimal levels for the forthcoming operation.]

Naruto grimaced and gamely bit and slowly chewed the protein bar. He swallowed it and then chased it down with a swig of water.

Satisfied, Hidden Hand continued it's briefing as a new slash appeared in midair and a topographical map formed of Konoha and zoomed outward, showing the dense forests surrounding the Hidden Village. A blue highlighted track formed with tick marks, indicating time/movement. [As of last night, Force Suna has broken into three organized groups. SUNA-A. SUNA-B. SUNA-C.]

Each group blinked into existence and began diverging forming a three-pronged attack. Naruto watched as the three groups paused and then apparently bedded down sometime around 1900 last night.

Then, the image shifted with a riot of purple scattered all over the place. [Force Sound on the other hand is far more disorganized, even if they do have greater numbers in their forces.]

Naruto took a mouthful of water. That's to be expected. The vast majority of Sound's troops are low-level missing-nins and a scattering of criminal scum that Orochimaru broke out of prison. He's keeping them in line with a combination of fear and a promise of rape, looting, and plundering of Konoha.

[I estimate that Sound's force is mainly intended as the expendable skirmishers, designed to tie up Konoha's defenses while Suna leads the focused attack with the Suna Jinchuuriki as their main offensive thrust.]

Naruto smirked. "I called it didn't I?" he said, unable to resist gloating out loud.

Hidden Hand almost reluctantly agreed. [Yes. Your estimation for Subject Orochimaru's behavioral pattern is proving superior to my own. On the other hand, Orochimaru is not following a superior strategic assault vector pattern.] The Intelligent Device seemed a bit miffed.

Naruto had to give the Intelligent Device that one and shrugged both physically and mentally.

True, but Orochimaru is mainly about appearances. It's overly theatrical that he commits the assault at the very height of the Exams not to mention he'll try to commit the assassination of the Hokage at the same time. His probable secondary objective is the kidnapping of Sasuke Uchiha for his new body if it's feasible.

He knows that while Konoha is distracted by the presence of the various political figures and neutral ninjas, he also knows that security is at a heightened state during the Chunin Exams Finals.

Like you suggested, it would be much more effective if he did the assassination attempt beforehand to disrupt the chain of command, but he can't resist being face-to-face and taunting the Old Man one last time. He also should have simply have taken the Uchiha during the second stage in the Forest of Death before alerting us to his presence.

It's not enough that he achieves his objectives, he has to rub our faces in it too. He wants to intimidate us, impress the Uchiha, and show the rest of the world that he's so powerful, he can do whatever he wants and Konoha can't do a damn thing to stop him.

[Megalomania behavioral patterns added to Threat Matrix. Are you absolutely sure that you wish to commit ourselves to this counterattack?]

Naruto toyed with the water bottle thinking. Then he nodded his head. Yes. The death of the Old Man wouldn't just be a major blow to Konoha, but frankly I don't like the political landscape that would emerge in the fallout for me. The majority of the Elders and Council are for weaponizing me along with Danzo's faction.

There is no clear successor to the Hokage post, it may very well fall to Danzo. He certainly hasn't been shy about politicking for it. Besides, we both knew that my cover couldn't hold up forever. This way, I should be able to garner the good will of the Old Man in hiding you and my skills from him. And this should go a long way to changing the perception of the Shinobi populance towards me as well.

Naruto got up and began to dress, pulling over the standard armor mesh undershirt and a simple dull grey tunic that matched his pants.

[Very well. I simply wish to reiterate my concerns. Even with my enhancements and powers added to your own, you are still FAR from an S-Rank Ninja Classification. Only the fact that this strike is taking place here in Konoha where our power is at our strongest, along with our advance warning and preparations do we have a reasonable chance of success against the Suna-Sound Invasion and Orochimaru.]

Naruto flicked his hand out and Hidden Hand abruptly appeared out of thin air which he caught easily. He spun it lightly in his hand. "Shadow Armor Set Up."

A glowing white circle of glyphs and symbols formed on the black flooring, creating a mandala and then threads of pure shadow erupted and crept up Naruto's feet and ankles, weaving together and forming a stylized suit of shadows. The greaves, gauntlets, and shoulder pads were decorated with a stylized leaf. The shadow threads wove a face mask and helm engraved with the Konoha's leaf insignia. Naruto picked up a long orange scarf and wrapped it around his neck with a decorative flourish.

Well, I wouldn't be quite so confident about this counterattack if you hadn't gotten a real good Scan on the Snake Bastard during the Forest of Death Stage and how he's got that huge weakness.

Providing that this works, Naruto thought quietly.

[I heard that.]

Naruto sighed. Sometimes having Handy around could be a real pain in the ass. The Intelligent Device was like a goddamn mental voyeur.

[I heard that too.]

After years of vainly trying—and failing to see anything during Shadow Walking, Naruto had simply given in and kept his eyes closed. It kept his eyeballs from feeling like they were being dipped in ice water.

Despite Hidden Hand's insistence that it was purely a psychosomatic impression—Naruto swore that it always felt like his entire body was plunging into wet half-melted snow whenever he traveled via Shadow Walk.

It was the best analogy that he could come up with. His body felt immersed in a thick, semi-solid liquid that was also freezing cold and there was an odd resistance towards his movements similar to being underwater. Fortunately, moving between shadow to shadow in the Shadow Realms did not take too long as he literally moved at the speed of dark and the geographical distance was fairly short. That too was a blessing as Naruto had noted that over very long distances; he started hearing whispers that increased in intensity and weirdness the further and further he travelled—something that Hidden Hand proclaimed was psychosomatic as well.

None of the Suna Nins noticed that the shadow of one of their Jonins became darker than his companions in the weak dawn light or that he shivered involuntarily as he suddenly felt chilled.

Intelligence Devices were creations of the pre-Rikkudo Sennin Age. Far more technological advanced, their civilization saw it's cataclysmic end at the hands of the Juubi—the Ten-Tailed Beast which reduced the survivors to a pre-industrial state. A level which they had barely managed to progress out of in most areas.

Intelligent Devices possessed various features and functions and classifications. Some were created for civilian usage and were fairly limited but highly personable and interactive artificial intelligences. Others were living artillery weapons designed as weapons of mass destruction, these tended to only a small modicum of a personality.

To give one an idea, the legendary sword known as Samehada would be considered barely above a child's toy.

Hidden Hand was several grades above that. On the other hand, neither was it one of those legendary weapons of mass destruction. It had a number of attributes and abilities, some of which were even useful for combat situations. But it was optimized for stealth, infiltration, and intelligence gathering. In those spheres—it was unbeatable or close to it. As a result, it also had to have one of the most advanced and complex artificial intelligences and a highly developed personality drive in order to fulfill those tasks.

Thanks to the fact that Naruto possessed the Kyuubi no Kitsune, Hidden Hand was able to channel phenomenal amounts of chakra to superpower the Intelligent Device's various jutsus and abilities to all new levels.

A gigantic magical circular mandala formed around the Suna encampment, glowing sigils and symbols briefly illuminated the entire campsite for a moment.

[World of Eternal Darkness.]

This particular technique enabled Hidden Hand to literally suck everyone within range of the magical circle into a Shadow Sphere. It was much harder than it looked.

To cast this particular jutsu, Naruto had to emplace some pre-made artifacts well beforehand. The first was the Shadow Sphere itself buried underground. It was an ebon orb that had taken several weeks to weave out of shadows and solidify by soaking in the caster's blood for 48 hours.

The next were five seal tags that formed each corner of a five point star with the Shadow Sphere in the center of that pentacle.

And there were additional limitations; it could only be maintained by Naruto feeding it an enormous amount of chakra. So much so that he would not be able to perform any jutsus or chakra-intensive techniques. And, most importantly—the victims' shadows had to be 'stable' according to Hidden Hand. Which meant that they needed to have been in a relatively motionless in around the same location for no less than 5 hours and in the effective magic circle mandala radius of the Shadow Sphere.

It did have several advantages though. The entire Suna platoon plummeted over a dozen of feet to land in a crumpled heap, massively disoriented. Some of them were screaming, others were clutching themselves and shivering involuntarily from their first Shadow Walk.

"Welcome," Naruto intoned solemnly as he snapped the chain of the black kusagarami taunt with one hand gripping the polished handle of the sickle end and the other holding the chain. He started to spin the weighted end, causing a faint buzzing sound to reverberate through the strange black and blank realm that they were in. "Welcome to Hell."

[Shadow Armor. Aggressor Mode.]

Liquid shadow threads emerged from the Shadow Armor and began to wrap themselves like a wet, organic-like mesh around the joints of Naruto's body and other exposed points, including his face. Now, only a pair of glowing, silvery eyes were visible.

With a snarl, Naruto sent the weighed end of the chain hurling out. It smashed into the temple of one of the Suna Nins, turning his head into paste. With a jerk of his hand, Naruto caused the weight to go flying out in an arc to wrap around another nin's neck and with a brutal jerk, snapped it.

Several of the Suna Nins started trying to fight back, throwing jutsus and shurikens. None of them came anywhere near Naruto. They were trapped in the Shadow Sphere. They could not break free of the pitch black all encompassing darkness and were completely and totally deprived of their eyesight. Unlike Naruto who alone could see perfectly in the World of Eternal Darkness and he gleefully took full and brutal advantage of that.

Killing off the few resistors, Naruto inwardly grimaced but finished off the other nins who were still helpless and recuperating from the sudden translocation shock. He vividly remembered his first Shadow Walk. After losing control of his bodily functions, he had thrown up afterwards to boot.

He felt like vomiting again, although for different reasons this time. He shook his head as he gazed at the carnage he had unleashed, much of it on helpless human beings. But he had little time and much to do.

Gritting his teeth, he subvocalized his order. Shadow Walk to SUNA-B!

[Calculating. Passageway Set. Shadow Gate Opening.]

Naruto closed his eyes, stepped forward, and once more, he plunged into ice water…